A Small Victory

I'd pay BIG money to see that.

Well, that's one way to reduce the debt.

Seems like the perfect complement to campaign finance reform.

As far as I could tell, Edwards was the only candidate that directly answered a direct question. The rest just spit out tangenitally related blockquotes.

"Does anyone actually answer a question in a debate"

Yes, but what we're seeing aren't "debates" at all. At least I didn't see any candidates debating each other. All I saw, all I EVER see, was softball batting practice. I guess it's got to be that way until it gets down to two candidates, huh?

I think instead of all these boring ass caucuses (caucci?)and primaries, we should have a tv series like Moonbat Survivor or Tinfoil Hat Idol, and just let the winner be the candidate.

You said Caucci snicker

Primaries are always a slugfest. Until you get an actual candidate, you aren't going to get a real debate - and even then you might not, with the way politics has been going.

One of the contenders needs to challenge another to answer the question - stop avoiding the issue and answer the question. The debate would stop dead in it's tracks, the person shaming the others would shoot up in the polls and you might see a real debate - or in typical fashion, they would all turn on the lone dissenter like a pack of rabid dogs and try to push that person down so that they wouldn't have to deal with reality.

All politicians now go into their prepared spiel whenever ostensibly "answering" a question on television. They've learned that with the super-short time frames used on television, there's no real risk of them getting called on it. Even if someone does try to say "you didn't answer the question", all they have to do is say "yes I did" and then go right back into their prepared pitch. No moderator is going to be willing to stop them at that point and detail the specifics that the candidate refused to address. You see this same phenomenon over and over again on the Sunday morning shows...

Why don't they just scrap all this primary bullshit anyway? When it is time for the actual presidential / vp election, have a ballot paper listing all those who ponied up and paid their money to be on the ballot.

Then, run a preferential ballot - you number candidates from one to whatever, in order of your preference. Then, the candidate with the lowest number of first preference votes has their vote transferred to whoever was number 2 on that ballot, and so on until you have a winner.

That way, everyone's votes count.

I'd go for a panel of judges scoring each answer on responsiveness, style and content.

Commentator: "Oh, that 6 for Kerry puts him right out of the running. All Dean needs is a 7.3 or better on his next tossup."

Failing that, we could do it like a game show. Bob Barker could present all the candidates new proposed programs, and they could all guess at the cost, with the closest one getting some delegates.

I have an idea as to how to get the participants to answer the questions instead of just spouting their rhetoric. Have you ever seen the collars used to train dogs to do what you want them to do? If not let me give you a short description. It is worn around the neck and whenever the trainer does not like what the dog is doing, he can push a button that sends an electrical shock thru the collar to the dog’s neck. It does not take too many of these corrections before ole hound gets the message. I would put one of these collars on each of the debate contestants, and have it triggered by the panel asking the questions. Here is how it works. Everyone of the panel of questionnaires would have a button to press. Lets assume that there are 4 people on the panel. When two people on this panel push their buttons the person being asked the question would receive an audible tone that they have deviated from the question. When at least 3 on the panel pushes their buttons, then that candidate would receive a shock to their neck, and this would prevent them from proceeding on with their rhetoric. After a few seconds of intense pain the candidate would be free to continue speaking, probably at this time answering the question.

Now that would be a debate......

I didn't watch the debate so I can't say nothing about that but as for Brokaw..
He is always drunk. I watch the nightly news just so I can watch him do the bob and weave and slur his words and get mad when the cameras don't move away from his runny nose.

Screw the debates. I say they get a WWF-style cage match going.

Last man alive wins the belt, and a 4-year stint in the White House.

Wait, isn't that how Minnesota & California pick their leaders?

".. It's not 'Survivor' if nobody dies..."

I say stuff the moderator and make 'em all question each other. I think they know one another's vulnerabilities better than the press does. Oh, and when time is up for the response, the mic is turned off. Not done with your sentence? Too bad.

When I tried my hand at electoral politics a few years back, I came to the sad conclusion that a major reason for my defeat was that I was answering the questions. Ninety percent of the questions the media types were asking us candidates were about non-issues.

Now, that was a local campaign for municipal office, but nothing I've ever seen in a presidential debate looks any different to me.